


Smile

by Kr1411



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 03:34:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14179635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kr1411/pseuds/Kr1411
Summary: Smiles. No matter what emotion you were feeling, there was always a smile there to protect you. Whenever you’re sad, or tired of… of living, you can always fake a smile and everyone will think you’re ok.That’s what Barry always did. His whole life, it didn’t matter if he was angry, or sad, or happy, he always wore a smile. For Joe, and for Iris.





	Smile

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt I got from a guest user, Elizabeth Watkins. I didn't include everything, but I'm planning on maybe doing a follow up with all the arrowverse characters (and try my hardest not to make it an Olivarry thing). 
> 
> Anyway, I decided to wait to write this until I could kind of write from my heart (as cheesy as that is), so some of the things Barry feels are things I feel too, we've gone through this before with previous one shots, but still. I want it to be writing my feelings as much as it was seeming realistic. Even if it's not. It's late, and my muse if lacking.

Smiles. No matter what emotion you were feeling, there was always a smile there to protect you. Whenever you’re sad, or tired of… of  _ living _ , you can always fake a smile and everyone will think you’re ok. 

That’s what Barry always did. His whole life, it didn’t matter if he was angry, or sad, or happy, he always wore a smile. Even after a night of carving up his wrists, he would always wear a smile. For Joe, and for Iris. 

He didn’t start hurting himself until just after his mom died. He lost his mother, everyone thought he was insane, Joe held him back from seeing his  _ innocent _ father, who didn’t even  _ want _ to see Barry in the first place… he just had to find a way to take out his anger. His pain. 

Barry slowly grew a hatred after that. He wouldn’t eat, he couldn’t go a day without wanting to die, but he kept a smile on his face. He couldn’t be even more of a burden to Joe and Iris than he already was. 

Barry knew there would never be a light at the end of this tunnel. He made sure to avoid anything relative to self harm when he visited his therapists, so they would never make him take pills. It’s not like the pills would do anything for him, anyway. 

Barry plowed through middle school, high school, and even college, and no one found out his secret. As much as he wished someone would notice his pain one day, it never happened. 

He graduated college, and became a CSI at the very precinct with the very cops that arrested his dad. They would all make fun of him for his age, and Barry didn’t know how to take it. He just did. 

They came up with a nickname for him: Baby face. As if to add on to Barry’s insecurities of himself, now they would unintentionally make fun of him. 

Barry hated it. He loved his job, he hated the feeling that people didn’t want him there. No one took him seriously, since he was “too young” to be a CSI. 

Barry knew Singh was well aware of the people making fun of his age, but as far as he knew, Singh did nothing about it. Hell, even  _ Joe  _ didn’t do anything about it. That stung him. That stung him bad. 

Barry would always fantasize about what would happen if he died. How would it happen, how would people react? He had these thoughts since high school, but he never acted on them. 

He’d probably over cut, or overdose. As much as he loved the thrill of taking his pain out on his body, he wanted his last feelings to be quick and painless. And again, he never told anyone about it. 

\-----

The day he did it, it was  _ not  _ a good day. One of the officers, Detective Meeks, who hated Barry as much as someone could hate something, came into the office in a particularly bad mood. As soon as Barry walked in, he started preaching about how worthless Barry was to the precinct, and how he was too young to even work there. That the only reason Barry worked there in the first place was because of his past. 

Barry couldn’t take it anymore, his smile couldn’t hold up much longer. He went home, not even bothering to clock into work, and ran up to the bathroom. He grabbed a knife, not thinking clearly, and started to slice up his legs. Then he moved up to his stomach, pecks, then his forearms. He made sure his upper half was cut enough so he would have bled out by the time someone found him. 

Unfortunately, that method didn’t work. Joe followed Barry home, and by the time Barry blacked out in the bathtub, Joe had pounded his way into the bathroom. 

Everything after that was a blur. Barry didn’t remember much, just a lot of pressure on his torso, legs, and arms, and Joe freaking out over the phone. He remembered waking up in a hospital, but he was too high on medication to actually diagnose what was happening. 

He remembered Singh there, and Joe, and Iris there, but his time in the hospital was mostly a blur. He hated that blur. He felt he was going to go insane if he was there for one more second after he was let out. 

About a week and a half later, Barry got another visit from Captain Singh. 

“I fired Detective Meeks,” was the first thing out of Singh’s mouth. “I don’t tolerate that kind of behaviour toward any of my officers.” 

Barry looked down at his hands, one of the few parts of his body that he didn’t screw over. They had no scars on them, they were flawless. He never thought he’d think of his hands that way. “Why didn’t you do anything when everyone was making fun of my age?” Barry asked, with a small voice. 

“They weren’t being serious, Barry. There was nothing I could do,” Singh said sadly. “Believe me, I wanted to do something, but you didn’t file any complaints, and they weren’t trying to make you feel bad.” 

Barry looked down. “I know…” he said, almost inaudibly.    
Singh put a hand on Barry’s shoulder. “Do you feel ready to come back to work? I’m positive no one will talk bad about you,” he offered calmly. 

Barry thought about it. He wanted to believe that, he did. But he knew people would go back to talking about him sooner or later. And a smile wouldn’t help him anyway. 

_ Screw it, _ Barry thought, and nodded. “Sure,” he said, still unsure if that was the right decision.

\----- 

A week later proved that going back was, in fact, the right decision. People acted like Barry was normal, they didn’t walk on eggshells around him, and someone even brought him a cake. SIngh must’ve told them how it would make Barry feel if they acted a certain way. It was… comfortable? There wasn’t really a way to describe it. 

Barry would still hurt himself every now and again, but when he got struck by lightning, and woke up, when he met Caitlin and Cisco, his smile slowly became less fake, and more real.

Maybe, just maybe, there was a light at the end of the tunnel.  

 

**Author's Note:**

> Song to go along with this kind of - Smile, by Josh Groban


End file.
